Credit: Lillian Mongeau/EdSource Today

Credit: Lillian Mongeau/EdSource Today

The initial release of statewide test scores in California this calendar week will reveal how well schools, districts and groups of students did in classes aligned with the Common Core standards. With two-folio reports that volition exist mailed to their homes, parents volition notice out how well their children did on the new Smarter Balanced tests on the Common Core. And with their own database of data, teachers volition larn how finer they've taught them.

The state is gradually rolling out the Online Reporting System, a web-based tool that will enable teachers and principals to hands analyze their students' cease-of-year exam results in more item than under the previous Standardized Testing and Reporting, or STAR, programme, which Smarter Balanced replaced. The new testing system is now known equally the California Assessment of Student Progress and Performance, or CAASPP. ETS developed the information system for California and other states in the Smarter Counterbalanced Assessment Consortium.

1 of the promises of online testing – and Smarter Balanced in particular – was that teachers would receive preliminary student test results quicker – potentially before the end of the school twelvemonth for most students – and exist able to analyze them at a level of item that volition enable them to spot strengths and gaps in their instruction. The Online Reporting System is designed to be the tool that will let them to do that.

"Better data than before about students in real fourth dimension is the goal," said State Board of Education member Patricia Rucker.

The database is still existence phased in; at this point, merely district and school site administrators have access to student reports in the Online Reporting System. The California Department of Education and ETS wait to consummate permission protocols that will extend the data to the students'  teachers past late Oct. And ETS is dealing with technical issues involved with reporting the data with the detail that will about help teachers pinpoint areas of curriculum and didactics to focus on. Meanwhile, districts could provide printouts of the results or brand them accessible by uploading files through their existing data systems. Information reports for the next round of  Smarter Counterbalanced tests, in the spring of 2016, should be available weeks before summer vacation, under the state'south contract with ETS, according to Keric Ashley, land deputy superintendent.

But, from what they've seen then far, district cess administrators and a teacher who got a run-through liked what they saw. The state Department of Didactics also provided EdSource a preview of the system.

"Teachers desire to improve their do, so they tin can't expect to become concord of the data (to ask), 'What can we do differently?'" said Susan Light-green, director of assessment, evaluation and planning for the San Juan Unified School Commune.

Students will receive a score, between 2000 and 3000 on math and English language arts falling within one of four performance levels. Emily's score for English language arts is slightly in Level 3, indicating she satisfied the overall requirements of the standards. The line encompassing the dot is the margin of error.

Source: California Department of Education

Students will receive a score betwixt 2000 and 3000 on math and English language arts falling within one of four functioning levels. Emily's score for English language arts is slightly in Level three, indicating she satisfied the overall requirements of the standards. The line encompassing the dot is the margin of error.

Initially, teachers volition become electronically the same test data that a parent will receive in the 2-folio paper report, except that a parent will see one child'due south score, while teachers will look at class results. Teachers can and then intermission down the information by various student subgroups, such as English learners. Over time, both current and former teachers will be able to compare scores from previous years.

Parents volition receive their child's four-digit scores in math and English language arts. The scores  autumn within one of four levels, from Level ane, "standard non met," to Level 4, "standard exceeded"; other states are equating Level three, "standard met," with "expert," only California isn't using the term.

The reports and so break down math and English language language arts to their key components, which Common Core calls "claims." These were chosen "clusters" under the previous state standards.

There are three for math:

  • Problem solving and information analysis (using tools and strategies to solve existent-world bug);
  • Concepts and procedures;
  • Communicating reasoning (the ability to explain conclusions).

There are iv "claims" for English language arts:

  • Reading
  • Writing
  • Listening
  • Research/research

There won't exist a student score for each component; instead the reports will say whether the student was above, below or at/nearly the standard for each. This information is useful to teachers, said Julie Steiger, an 18-year teacher who teaches fourth course at Mariemont Elementary in San Juan Unified. "If you take a group of students who scored high in a merits area, you lot can focus instead on another expanse."

Green cited an example this month where the information on math claims will change instruction. Teachers at a loftier-performing San Juan elementary school noticed scores lagged on problem solving and communicating reasoning compared with procedures.

"They realized that they hadn't been asking deeper questions" involved in mathematical reasoning, Greenish said. "They've decided to build into their curriculum side by side wintertime two circuitous assessments, requiring students to apply their knowledge to solve a problem and and so explain their answers. Watching teachers larn and and then make changes to instruction this year has been very exciting."

Data at the claims level is comparable to what parents and teachers received from STAR reports on the California Standards Tests, although Smarter Balanced says that claims emphasize students' power to apply knowledge covered by the standards.

The biggest advantage for teachers is that the online system will drill down to the next layer of detail, breaking each claim into multiple components that more closely match the curriculum that teachers teach. These elements are chosen "targets." For 5thursday-grade reading for instance, teachers volition meet, among other targets, how well students:

  • Summarized central ideas, key events, procedures and topics;
  • Identified or interpreted figurative language, like metaphors;
  • Used supporting evidence to support interpretations of information.

Individual students won't receive scores on targets. They will exist statistically valid, depending on the numbers of students tested, only at the class or class level, Ashley said. ETS should complete the target breakdowns sometime this winter, he said.

By matching targets with standards, teachers could identify strengths and weaknesses in the curriculum and areas of pedagogy that demand work. They could identify subgroups of children in a school that need extra assistance in particular areas. Scheduling is more time-consuming in high schools, only some elementary schools assign students to the next grade by the end of the school yr. Green envisioned the students' current and adjacent year'southward teachers going over information together, to plan for individuals or groups of students.

Perhaps a student identified equally gifted did poorly on the Smarter Counterbalanced tests. If assigned to her class, Steiger said, she would come up upwardly with a motivational strategy to come across that the student starts the twelvemonth primed to larn.

"The target level is what we are really excited nearly," Green said. The usefulness of the data  pinpointing weaknesses and strengths in curriculum and pedagogy "will be dramatic," she said.

Timing will be critical. Under ETS' contract with the state for next yr, districts will outset receiving individual student results three to six weeks after completing math or English arts tests. They won't all come at once. Districts with earlier test dates will get theirs starting time. And the district and schoolhouse totals are only preliminary; concluding results won't be released by the country until August – at least a few weeks earlier than the initial results from this year. But they will be useful for instructional purposes, and for the showtime time, teachers could receive the data earlier the end of the school year, depending on when districts administered the tests.

Since STAR was paper-based, teachers had to rely on districts' central offices to upload CDs of information and provide reports they requested. Teachers should have easier and fuller access to their students' data nether the new arrangement, assuming districts make information technology bachelor to them. Rucker, a one-time instructor who is at present a lobbyist for the California Teachers Association, is concerned that districts that are used to controlling who gets to run into data and when volition restrict admission. She is optimistic that they will grant it.

Ashley agreed. "It is our expectation that more than in the by, every teacher should have admission to make real-time decisions."

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